https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nn0UkdDArM

Eli Pariser, the 30-year-old president of MoveOn.org, has been living with the Internet for half his life. And now he’s fretting that the Internet is not living up to its early promise of liberating people from being human:

I’ve always believed the Internet could connect us all together and help create a better, more democratic world. That’s what excited me about MoveOn — here we were, connecting people directly with each other and with political leaders to create change.

But that more democratic society has yet to emerge, and I think it’s partly because while the Internet is very good at helping groups of people with like interests band together (like MoveOn), it’s not so hot at introducing people to different people and ideas. Democracy requires discourse and personalization is making that more and more elusive.

Yes, how we pine for the good old days of three networks and one newspaper, when we were much more likely to be introduced to different people and ideas, at least those deemed safe to expose to an audience that was substantially more uptight than we were.

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Gingrich Set to Run, With Wife in Central Role [NYT]

Photo: The Inimitable Princess Sparkle Pony

We will readily grant that this is not the kind of moment we would care to experience while locking our tray table in the upright position:

The passengers sat stunned as they watched a man walk quickly toward the front of American Airlines Flight 1561 as it was descending toward San Francisco. He was screaming and then began pounding on the cockpit door.

We will also credit the AP writers for not including the language being screamed in the lead. You might guess which it is — no, not Swedish — but anybody pounding on a cockpit door should be enough to get Dear Reader’s attention.

In fact, our valiant wire-service reporters are able to contain themselves until the fifth graf:

While [Rageh] Almurisi, 28, of Vallejo, Calif., has no clear or known ties to terrorism, authorities say, the incident underscored fears that extremists may try to mount attacks to retaliate for the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden last week.

We’ll give you a moment to parse that.

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On February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared at the United Nations with proof that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction.

This was later proven untrue.

On April 1, 2003, Jessica Lynch was said to be liberated from her Iraqi captors, in the first successful rescue of an American POW since World War II.

This was later proven to be a wholesale misrepresentation of events.

On April 9, 2003, a statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down in Baghdad’s Firdos Square, in what was presented as a popular celebration of his downfall.

This was later proven to be staged by Marines, with the assistance of an Army psyops team, for the benefit of news cameras in a nearby hotel.

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Against our better judgment, we ended up watching the Redshirt Republican debate over dinner last night, and managed to keep our food down.

(Disclosure: “Keep our food down” is here used for obligatory comedic effect only. “Managed to stay awake” would be closer to the truth.)

We’ll spare you the recap, since we’re not wonky enough to really care. But for a very brief moment, Herman Cain said something mildly interesting: That as President, he would consult with Experts and make Decisions, since he’s a veteran Decision-Maker.

We know, we know: Herman Cain is The Decider, Part II.

Or: That’s what every businessman running for political office says.

Or: Didn’t President Obama consult with Experts and make a Decision just the other day? We seem to remember hearing about it Sunday night.

But to take Herman Cain almost seriously for what is likely the first and last time: What kind of Decisions does he have experience making?

You know the shorthand: Pizza! Meat or Veggie? Does Citizen Cain have an opinion on the controversial Pineapple Question? When you ask whether anyone else wants the last slice, what happens if somebody says Yes?

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We were nine the year of Martin and Bobby, and because we were politically precocious, the names of James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan are very familiar to us. But our precociousness only went so far: We draw a blank on Tet and Chicago, although we do remember Tricky Dick on Laugh-In. (Answer: Yes. Because you’re a fucking asshole.)

Jumping ahead a few years, we’ll happily admit that we only watched Senator Sam and the Watergate hearings because they pre-empted the Match Game — and only until the networks started rotating daily coverage among themselves. Sure, we paid attention, but it’s not like we went out of our way.

You’ll forgive us, then, if we don’t get an easy chuckle out of this factoid making the rounds:

Teens Don’t Know Who Osama Bin Laden Is, According to Yahoo! Search Trends

That was Yahoo’s Monday report on Sunday-night search activity. Boing Boing combined it with some Jaw-Droppingly Clueless Tweets, and the meme was off and running.

And really, who can resist? You can blame the kids, you can blame their teachers, you can blame their parents, you can blame the media, you can even blame society. Everybody wins!

In our case, we’ll blame Yahoo.

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We take immense satisfaction in knowing that Osama bin Laden met a violent demise at the hand of American commandos.

This, apparently, is a controversial statement. At least in some quarters.

Before we continue, let’s excuse a few folks from the room. People of deep faith or deep conscience, who object to the celebration of any death, no matter how damned the soul, may take their leave. People who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks, or in the wars that ill-advisedly followed, and who prefer not to mark the occasion of Bin Laden’s passing with brutal joy, may also go in peace.

Glenn Greenwald, however, may want to stick around:

It’s been a long time since Americans felt this good and strong about themselves — nothing like putting bullets in someone’s skull and dumping their corpse into an ocean to rejuvenate that can-do American sense of optimism.

Thanks, but we have plenty of other reasons to feel good and strong about ourself. And our long-held dark judgments about our fellow citizens remain unchanged.

But yes: Nothing like putting bullets in someone’s skull and dumping their corpse into an ocean. We’ll happily cop to that. And if you want to tack on something about the smell of napalm in the morning, we won’t duck.

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